Gido Washa

The new season of Dogtown, National Geographic's TV show about the dog sanctuary run by Best Friends Animal Society, has started and because I don't have the National Geographic channel I went to their site to peruse their upcoming episodes - which is kind of like going into your favorite bakery with no money. I know, I should just subscribe to the channel already but I hold back because I don't need anymore excuses to sit on my ass all day. I'll just go buy the DVDs when they come out, though for all the plugging of the show I do here, you'd think they'd just give me a free copy of Season 3.

Anyway, where was I before I started lobbying for swag?

Right. While there, I came across this, the trailer for the April 3 episode. Warning: if you already don't have much faith in the general heaving mass of meat that is humanity, this might just put you over the edge. The catalyst for the show was the intentionally horrific starving to death of thousands of dogs in the Gido Washa "cave" in Ethiopia at the hands of local villagers. Fortunately, a good man named Dr. Roba heard about this cave and, along with HAPS (Homeless Animals Protection Society, Ethiopia), had it sealed off and rescued the four barely living dogs that were there at the time. Two of the four end up at Dogtown.

What happened to the other thousands of dogs that were in that cave before them? Well, you'll see:



The episode is called "Starting Over". Talk about understating evil in the title. I think I would have called it "Saved from Dog Hell on Earth" or "Ignorance is no excuse for casually sadistic evil" or "Let's stick the dog killers into a pit and see how they like it". I guess that's why I'll never get hired by National Geo, though Fox might consider that last idea for their next reality TV season.

Here's more on the actual rescue at the Gido Washa cave. The cheery narrator sounds like a he could be talking about a nice Sunday afternoon stroll for ice cream and lollipops:



And there's more info on the four rescued dogs and the excellent Dr. Roba here and here.